Page 65 - Contrast2013

A Story [I Don’t Love You...]

Mara Wesen

“I don’t love you.” He said.

Earlier that day a jar of peaches had shattered. Juice dripped
through the floorboards. There were still pieces of glass on the
floor. The counter was cold beneath her hands.

“I don’t love you.”
He said it as if it had been true for a while.
She broke it down in her head. I: the most selfish of words.
Don’t. Do not. As in ‘do not love’. She saw herself telling this
to her children, when she had them. Not his children. Warning
them, sparing them the ache she now felt as real as the broken
glass.
Love. All-encompassing; pain, joy, fear, hope. Much like
the horizon on a cloudy day, and now she saw a cloud of dark
smoke slowly drifting in her direction. She thought she should
head home and close all her windows and grab a blanket and
a movie and make sure Zipper was alright. Zipper didn’t like
storms and insisted on holing up beneath the couch, quivering.
She wished she could do the same.
Long after he had left, she thought about burning his things.
He was set to pick them up in the morning. No. She wouldn’t
burn the clothes and books he had left. The fantastical tales they

Contrast | 65